


“Can I get some editing tips?”

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23341003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: This isn’t the first time Dan has seen AmazingPhil in the University of York library. It’s not the second or third time either. But it is the first time he’s going to be brave enough to say something.A fic about bravery and bravado.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 110
Collections: phandomficfests: escape from reality





	“Can I get some editing tips?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [phandomficfests](http://phandomficfests.tumblr.com) Escape from Reality event (Prompt: Trope Celebration)

This isn’t the first time Dan has seen AmazingPhil in the University of York library. It’s not the second or third time either. 

But it is the first time he’s going to be brave enough to say something. He has to, he feels like too much of an idiot every time he comes down pretending to study and staring like an absolute stalker whenever Phil has his head down. 

He still hasn’t figured out exactly what he wants to say. The perfectionist control-freak part of his brain (the vast majority) wants him to meticulously plan every word, every gesture, all his tones and glances and how many times he’s allowed to fuss with his hair. But he knows the second Phil goes off script— and Dan knows that Phil _will_ go off script, because he’s a real human person and not the paused screen of one of his videos Dan would’ve been practising with— that he will fall completely apart and his rosy patch will explode and he might die right then and there.So he decides to wing it. He’s always had a flair for improvisation anyway. 

He waits until the two people at Phil’s table leave. They usually do after about an hour. 

Fuck, Dan thinks, he really is a stalker huh? Maybe it’s best to abandon the whole idea. 

Or… as far as stalkers go, he could be worse. He doesn’t want to chop Phil up into tiny pieces or sell slices of his skin on eBay. 

He just wants to know him. 

Maybe get a few editing tips. They don’t exactly teach anything creative over in Law, and Phil’s one of the few people that were selected for the Video Post Production masters program. That’s not so creepy, surely. It’s an artistic venture, a business networking opportunity really. If one can consider YouTube to be business. Dan can’t, not really, as he hasn’t actually posted a video yet. But Phil’s been posting them for years. 

He notices that the strict librarian who was born to shush has gone on her smoke break. He also sees Phil’s friends pack up their bags. Dan counts to one hundred before standing up; he doesn’t want to look like he’s been waiting. 

He runs his fingers through his fringe, making sure it’s still straight and looking somewhat cool. As cool as it can look, with how much he’s already sweating and no doubt unstraightening it. He stands and swings his backpack over his shoulder and grabs two very neglected textbooks on contract law so that he has something in his hands. He had considered a coffee, but the nightmare scenario of spilling it all over Phil occurred to him and he simply couldn’t take the risk. 

“Hey,” he says, after taking a few steps closer to Phil’s table. “You’re, er, AmazingPhil, right?” 

Phil’s notoriously pale face somehow loses even more colour. He gives a nervous chuckle but then takes a breath and seems to relax all over. “Yeah,” he says, “but most people just call me Phil.” 

“Sorry, yeah, that was weird huh,” Dan nods. “Anyone sat here?” he asks, pointing to the chair across from Phil. 

Phil shakes his head, and if Dan’s vision wasn’t currently clouding and tunnelling and threatening to do him in, he might’ve sworn Phil gave him a quick up and down. He sits. 

He swallows thickly. “I’m a, er, I really like your videos.” 

“Oh _that’s_ where you heard the nickname,” Phil teases. Or Dan hopes he’s teasing. Holy fuck, is AmazingPhil really banting with him? “Thank you,” Phil says, a little more earnestly. Surprisingly earnestly.

“I’m Dan.” 

Phil holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Dan,” he says when they shake. Then Dan doesn’t say anything for what is apparently a little too long— and who can fucking blame him because he just had AmazingPhil’s amazing hand in his for a split second, and it was smooth and cool and nice and he wants to do it again— so Phil says with a grin, “What can I do for you?” 

That’s too tempting a question. Phil should know how dangerous that grin is. 

“Uhh, actually, if it’s not a bother, can I get some editing tips?” he asks, flustered and attempting with every cell in his body not to appear so. 

“Editing tips?” Phil sits up a little straighter. 

Dan nods. “I’ve been thinking of dipping my toe in the YouTube pool,” he admits, “but I don’t actually have any idea what I’m doing. And you’re like…” 

“...Amazing?” Phil supplies. 

Dan nods again, because yeah that’s the word he almost said, stupid as it is. 

“Dan, I’m really flattered,” Phil says, and he sounds like he means it. “I dunno how good of tips I got, like there are quicker and cleaner editors in the program than me. But yeah, sure, why not.” 

“Really?” Dan says, too loudly, too eagerly. He’s shushed by the librarian who is back at her post. 

“Really,” Phil laughs, “but probably not here.” 

“My room? I’m a fresher, here in the halls. It’s not far.” Dan knows he’s sounded less desperate during drunken makeouts when the bar is making last call and he’s said the very same thing, but he doesn’t care because Phil shuts his laptop and puts it in his bag and looks like he might’ve really said yes, even if Dan’s anxiety was spiking too high for him to actually hear it. 

*

Phil’s freaking the fuck out. He’s got a poker face on that feels thin as cheesecloth, and he doesn’t know how Dan hasn’t called him out on it yet but he’s grateful as hell. 

He must be dreaming. Seriously, he’s gotta be dreaming. How else could a seriously fit emo boy come up to him in the library, recognize him from bloody YouTube, and ask him back to his room? The only reason he figures he isn’t dreaming is because even his dreams never serve up perfection on a silver platter like this. 

He’s trying so hard not to screw it all up. He almost has half a dozen times already: when Dan first walked up to him, when Dan asked for _editing tips_ , when he almost tripped over his own feet as they walked together on the snow-damp pavement. 

Any minute now the mask is gonna slip and Dan’s not gonna see AmazingPhil anymore, and he’s surely going to be disappointed. He’s learned this lesson before, he knows better. He remembers getting to uni and for the first week playing the part of the sex-having, weed-smoking, club-going maniac. And how he couldn’t keep that up past party two. He’d kick himself if he wasn’t afraid of tripping again; he knows better, but he’s gonna put on a persona for this guy anyway. Dan is every one of Phil’s biases rolled into a cardigan and black skinny jeans, and he wants AmazingPhil. 

So Phil’s gonna give him AmazingPhil, for as long as he can manage. 

“What video of yours is your favourite?” Dan asks, his hands in his pockets and his head bent towards the ground. 

“Oh, I dunno,” he says. “Maybe ‘Snokoplasm.’” He picks it because it’s the most recent. His mind is pretty blank of any other video he’s ever made just now. 

Dan smiles. “That’s a great one,” he says. “Love the metaphor.” 

The metaphor. The blue snokoplasm he refused to admit he buys. Phil hopes he isn’t blushing when he asks, “Which do you like? It’ll help me refine those tips.” 

“Y’know, I’ll say the same, ‘Snokoplasm’ for Best Picture,” Dan says. 

Phil bumps into his shoulder despite the ice underfoot. “You’re just saying that.” 

“I’m not,” Dan laughs. “It doesn’t hurt that your shirt is off for half of it.” 

There’s a big blush blooming across Dan’s neck and jaw as he says that, and Phil’s more grateful than he can say that one matter has been cleared up. “Well, there’s your first tip then. Show some skin, Danny Boy.” 

Dan tugs on the collar of his coat, moving it out of the way. “Like so?” 

Phil hopes he isn’t _actually_ drooling. “Yeah,” he says, “exactly.” 

Dan’s little room in the halls reminds Phil of his own first year. He was in a different building, but all uni rooms look the same. The desk is too messy, the walls too bare, the sheets surely the same set that was put on the first day Dan arrived and still unwashed. There’s hardly any room, and nowhere for the two of them to sit really except on the single bed with their backs against the wall. Phil glances as it while he kicks his shoes off into the corner and he catches Dan doing the same while they take their coats off. 

Phil hears Dan let out a very deep sigh and turns to him. “Can I do something crazy?” Dan asks, a crease in his brow like he’s still making up his mind. 

There’s only a handful of possibilities, Phil figures, for what that crazy something is, and he really hopes Dan doesn’t mean the one where he gets murdered. But there’s certainly one way to find out. Phil nods. 

Dan lifts a hand and tangles his finger’s into Phil’s birdsnest of hair. He pulls Phil closer and kisses him. Phil is so lost in it, he’s once against considering the likelihood that this is a dream. Dan’s lips are chapped from the cold, but they’re soft and move against his eagerly. Phil gets an arm around Dan’s waist and he catalogues the surprised little sound Dan makes at that. 

It isn’t a long kiss; it isn’t deep or messy. But it knocks something out of Phil. His breath, or his confidence in his own false bravado. He pulls back, and lets the mask fall. 

He thinks Dan notices the change, or at least he’s studying Phil’s face like he does. “Was that okay?” Dan asks timidly, as timid as Phil feels too. 

Phil nods, and says in a voice that’s all Phil and not an ounce of AmazingPhil, “Look, you’re the first guy I’ve, er… given _editing tips_ to in a while, alright. It was more than okay but I think I need to have a seat before my legs give out.” 

Dan moves his hand from Phil’s hair to Phil’s shoulder. “Alright,” he says. He smiles. Phil counts two deep dimples he wants to tumble into. “That’s not a euphemism, by the way. I really do want those tips.” 

Phil leans forward and kisses him quickly. “Not at all a euphemism?” 

“Not _entirely_ ,” Dan says. His eyes are sparkling; there’s mischief there. Phil is so goddamn intrigued it almost scares him. If this really is a dream, he’d better not wake up. 

Soon, because Phil’s legs really do feel like they’re made of something too squishy to support him standing any longer, they sit on the tiny bed. There isn’t much space between them, ostensibly because of the single laptop they’re working on. 

Dan has raw footage of an introduction video he’d filmed back home. It’s good. Phil thinks Dan is just as engaging on camera as he is off. 

He gets distracted as Dan is working on zooming in for a few frames, by the bare neck beside him. He leans over to press his lips against Dan’s soft, warm skin, and for a little while they forget all about the reason they ended up on this tiny bed in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/613726923847237632/can-i-get-some-editing-tips) !


End file.
